"Ri": The Well Curb, from the series "Tales of Ise in Fashionable Brocade Pictures (Furyu nishiki-e Ise monogatari)"

Designed by Katsukawa Shunsho around 1767, this sheet belongs to the series Tales of Ise in Fashionable Brocade Pictures, Furyu Nishiki-e Ise Monogatari, with each print keyed to a syllable of the Japanese phonetic order. The syllable Ri identifies an episode associated with the well curb, recalling one of the most famous passages in Ise Monogatari in which a young man and woman measure themselves against the edge of a well as they grow up together, eventually exchanging poems that became models of classical Japanese love poetry. Shunsho casts this venerable scene in the contemporary mode of Edo ukiyo-e, replacing strict Heian costume with stylish, current dress and framing the action with the decorative clarity favored by mid-eighteenth-century designers. The technical resources of early nishiki-e color printing, still relatively new in the 1760s, enabled Shunsho to convey textured robes and a delicate atmosphere through layered woodblock impressions. Although he is most renowned for the actor portraiture that defined the Katsukawa school, his work on the Ise Monogatari series demonstrates his command of the classical literary repertoire prized by educated patrons. The print is preserved in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, where it stands as a record of how Edo publishers and designers reimagined treasured poetic episodes through the visual technologies of their time.